Let's bitch about our stupid, annoying co-workers

More than 3 quarters, you mean.

Math. Who needs it?

I have come to the conclusion that in any office I will hate one person for their noises (and yes, I realise they may well think something similar about mine, especially since I admit I have a habit of eating junk like crisps at weird times of day, so they are probably thinking "that fat bitch is eating noisy, unhealthy foods AGAIN, goddamn, just wait until lunchtime and eat a salad").

This realisation was inspired by my current noisiest, most annoying coworker being on holiday and me getting wound up by the eating and typing noises and desk-drumming of my other officemate, who I like and am not normally annoyed by, even when he does the same things but my more usual annoyance-target is in.

Anyway, I probably hate chewing noises because I hate all mouthy/breathy/squelchy noises but I can't actually remember being annoyed by them, unlike sniffing, tea-slurping, fork-biting, and this one dude who constantly had a pen lid in his mouth and squelched it back and forth all day. How I cursed the manufacturer for putting in the little holes so you can't choke to death on a pen lid any more. (Kidding... or am I? After 8 months of sitting a foot behind that guy I didn't even know any more.)

Telecommuting has never been more appealing

Chewing doesnt bother me but I fear that means that maybe *i* am the loud chewer in our office...

All I ask is that if someone is sitting right next to/behind me at their own desk, they not eat at their desk. I am going to throw a chair one day if I have to hear my boss's rice cracker crunch or cereal bowl slurp one more time... (I know ive gone on about this here at length. Or on the IA thread maybe. I know its a neurosis of mine)

my older sister used to throw fits at the dinner table over how disgusting she found everyone's eating sounds. that was during her difficult teenage years, tho. my dad really does make kind of gross/loud chewing noises and i think this is partly the source of my self-consciousness abt eating

Yeah it might be where I got it from too, parents who ate like noisy old geriatrics, possibly partly due to having loads of false teeth I think. Ugh.

this is all you guys, at werk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLA4b0TVbNw

I crush things loud at my desk becuase of my new teeth - they razors

ctrl+f the convo we had about bathroom germophobes

She forgot her pass today so is asking to borrow mine every time she needs to be which is often. That's all fine and obv I don't mind lending it to her but I'm sick so she is making this grand dramatic gesture of picking it up with a tissue and pinching it between two fingers/holding it away from her ever time. JUST FUCKING BORROW SOMEONE ELSE'S.

That is super rude. I would not be able to let that pass.

If she does it again I'm going to say "Seriously, Melissa?!" (That's her favorite phrase - another really annoying thing she does) "Just borrow someone elses ffs!" Cause really now.

Her pass?

Her slidey thing that opens the doors.

Between bathrooms you need a pass for and houses tented for fumigation, I wonder sometimes if I live in the same America as the rest of you.

lol

Well, ee have secured doors on our floor but the bathrooms are out in the hallway so we can get out and in them no prob but you need to have the pass with you so you can get back in our area if that makes sense.

That makes sense.

We have restrooms within the confines of our office, but if it's full, there's one outside in the public hallway.

Summertime's great because I always have my key in my pocket. Winter sucks because my keys are in my coat pocket and I have to walk back to my desk.

I think I would have to have a bit of fun with her. "Oh, I'm that filthy, am I?"

I should have pulled an Elaine and rubbed the pass all over me when I saw her coming for it.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4pn2lsow11rntezlo1_400.gif

please do this I will pay you some money

That sounded really creepy. I do not have a butt rubbing fetish. I just want you to tell this woman what's what.

I just had lunch with my old boss who quit her job and bought a cabin in the woods in rural Michigan and was telling me about all of the Larry David moments she having as she tries to acclimate to small town life. It was pretty funny. I'm putting this here because she used to be a stupid annoying coworker and now that she left, she is a delight to have lunch with once every couple of months.

how is her chewing these days?

Carl I left early but if she keeps it up tomorrow I just may.

holding up okay?

Yeah, def on the mend, thanks. I just couldn't stay the whole day. I think I'll feel a lot better tomorrow.

Next time she asks for your pass, pull it out of your underwear.

Oh! Wait, I just realises she's doing the offensive "ew germs" thing because you're *ill*, of course. I was thinking she was just being neortic and rude generally, a la the whapping you in the toilets for not covering yr hand debacle.

NEUrotic.

Well, yeah. I mean that's why she was doing it but there are 5 other ppl she could easily ask for their swipey cards. If it bugs her so much that I'm not feeling well then go ask one of them instead of making a big show of it.

Yeah exactly, its pretty wtf (and rude of her)

Even if they are roiling kettles of mental turmoil on the inside, because aren't we all, I feel like high level HR people should at least project a sense of emotional stability in the workplace.

"I have an open door policy! Please come in with any issues you have, so that I can tell you about how one of your coworkers called me fat and hurt my feelings."

I guess it's my turn to dominate this thread. As though it hasn't been my turn since I found it...

ANYWAY. My first name is Jennifer. There is one other attorney in my department whose first name is Jenifer. Our last names are wildly different. We are both white ladies who wear glasses but our style, demeanor, height, build, hair color, eye color, outlook on the world, reading habits, lunch preferences, work style, work friendships, and homelives are nothing alike. For some reason, people constantly confuse us. We have received confidential HR communications for the other Jen(n)ifer. IT has come to my desk to fix her computer (even though IT tickets have our room numbers on them, and our cubicles have our full names posted on them). Yesterday in the elevator, another judge-level coworker struck up a conversation with me about how long I've worked here (he was acting like it was a long time, so I guess this should have been my first clue) and then said, "You're in (judge that Jenifer works for)'s office, right?" No, you bozo! I'm in the office where you just were two days ago asking about a case!!! I ANSWERED YOUR QUESTION. Just now, a coworker who was standing right in front of me discussing an email that I sent to her said, "What the hell was Jenifer doing sending an email about this?" I threw a pencil at her and said, "I sent you the email! That's why I'm standing here talking to you about it!" She said she wondered how I knew so much about the situation.

It's like nobody has ever worked somewhere with two people who have the same first name. Or maybe they used lead paint on this floor.

I started to make a long list of the many specific differences between me and this lady but it sounded like straight bragging so just suffice it to say that she's about ten years older than me and a very Catholic mother of three who lives in the suburbs, and embodies all of those qualities in all of the presentation choices that she makes.

I'm eating a fish curry with coconut milk, which I microwaved in our kitchen and am now eating at my desk. Yeah, I'm that person today.

i have to fill out this stupid employee survey. and after that we have an all day employee retreat. don't make me go!

MS Exchange Online (cloud email) went down today, so nobody could use email for a little while. It came back up quickly, but when I told the associate atty, he said (whined) that it still wasn't working for him, even though it was working for every other person in our two buildings.

I asked him test it and make sure, and he reported, "Nope. Still down, just like it always is" (it's not). So I stepped into his office and sent him an email from my iPhone, and his computer and iPhone said "Boing!" when he received it. He said, "Well, it's working now, but it wasn't a second ago." He couldn't grasp that he had simply not received any emails in the 20 minutes between the outage and my message.

Then my boss called in a panicked that he would miss a critical client email he was expecting. He too had gotten seen an error message and then received no emails in the following 20 minutes, but didn't bother to send a test email.

I could not work with people that belligerent and hold my tounge, and I'd probably get fired for it haha. There's a reason why IT staff are so surly, and those guys are that fucking reason!!

Its like that scene in the IT Crowd when Roy fixes the girl who hates him's PC by... plugging it into the powerpoint. And she comes back, sees it is now "working" and sarcastically goes "FINALLY" (which wasnt even the joke but it always made me go "nrrrghhh you bitch" )

The associate is the big PITA, with the nasal whining and catastrophizing. He's not really *belligerent*, just whiner. If he would just deepen his voice complain from his diaphragm!

I am surrounded by sick assholes who think they are too important to stay home. I want a bubble to walk around in. :(

He couldn't grasp that he had simply not received any emails in the 20 minutes between the outage and my message.

hahahaha, I love this.

Is there any way to disable a phone's speakerphone function? My annoying coworker has always shouted into her speakerphone, but a switch flipped in me this week and I really want to kill her over this now.

I don't know if you can disable the speakerphone, but I bet it would be pretty easy to disable the speakerphone button.

I share a small office with my boss, which is attached to a slightly larger office. He is a violent Enter key striker, speakerphone offender, jargonistic abuser, and among other things, has a habit of sigh-exhaling in short whistle-shaped bursts. I've lost count of the number of times he's said "irregardless", and he plays in a 'muso' cover band (he previously referred to one of his blues-roots bands as being "like Jack Johnson before Jack Johnson"), a video of which he has played several times in the office, reliving the glory days when they took to the big stage covering 'Dark S1de of the Moon'. He's tried to impress me by kicking back in his chair while playing 'Dub Side of the Moon', and I've heard him listening to fretless bass fusion solos on his earphones. It's impossible not to cringe when he tries to relate about music (often), as we have almost nothing in common, and I've heard him enthusiastically discuss the merits of Nickelback with two colleagues (one of whom easily meets the criteria for being a stupid, annoying co-worker, and is the proud owner of every single Nickelback album - apparently there are 9? I've taken to emailing some of her declarations to my gmail e.g. "I like rock and metal - if it doesn’t feel like it’s going to break the foundations of the house with the bass, it’s not music I want to listen to"). He's fond of using terms like "going forward", "pro-active", "buy-in" and "heads-up". Him and another colleague (also a Nickelback fan) think that the Joey from Friends catchphrase "how you doin'?" is the height of hilarity, and will splice it into conversation for my benefit whenever possible. It's bleak.

kate, would you really sabotage her phone? I approve, honestly. Maybe start by very carefully putting a dab of super glue under speakerphone button or on the mic. The idea is to disable the speakerphone, but not so badly that the company will have to replace it.

Yam, it sounds bleak.

could just sabotage the speaker part... yank the wires out from behind it. all you need to do is work late and bring a screwdriver!

I've considered the superglue trick. I think I'll wait til she leaves town for a few days.